1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to shoe display devices designed to maximize the efficient merchandizing of shoes while mitigating shoe pilferage. It also relates to new methods for the display and merchandizing of shoes.
For the sake of brevity, the following description and claims refer specifically to shoes, but the invention broadly relates to other items of equivalent nature sold in pairs including boots, sandals, overshoes, athletic footware, clogs, and the like and the term shoes wherever used herein encompasses such items.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Historically the merchandizing of shoes has been conducted in a sales facility in which customers examine shoes offered by a salesperson upon request. The shoes are usually obtained by the salesperson from a storespace at the back of the salesroom. Such sales methods require an undesireably high ratio of salespersons per customers to handle shoe sales effectively and without customers dissatisfaction with waiting to make a purchase.
Attempts were made to reduce the time required to present a customer with a pair of shoes for size sampling, etc., by providing grouped storage of shoes coupled with a representative visual display of a single representative shoe (see U.S. Pat. No. 1,821,024 and 2,285,491).
Merchandise display and storage units designed to give a degree of security to the stored merchandise together with visual exposure have also been devised which utilize vertically hinged display panels (see U.S. Pat. No. 1,116,817 and 1,678,522).
Self-service merchandizing has for many years presented a technique for increasing sales volume and reducing purchase time without requiring a corresponding increase in salespersons. Self-service sales schemes, however, have proved more useful with certain classes of merchandise than with others. The sale of shoes using self-service principles has been utilized in the past, but has not proved to be totally satisfactory. Open display and ready access by customers to shoes has resulted in substantial inventory "shrinkage" due to pilferage. Special units to display only one shoe of a pair have been designed to mitigate pilferage (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,576). However, the prior art display units have been inefficient in salespace and shoe retrieval operation. There exists, therefore, a need for improved shoe display devices that can maximize the efficient merchandizing of shoes for semi-self-service sales while mitigating shoe pilferage.